Loose Fist

Loose Fist is an exercise in confrontation and resolution. Faced with a post-trauma fear of men, I created these images as a record of my changing relationship with masculinity in Kathmandu.

These images are the record of an exercise in reconciliation with fear.

A little over a year ago, I was assaulted in a violent homophobic attack by a group of young men late at night in my hometown of Kathmandu. In the aftermath of the assault, I developed a near-debilitating fear of men.

My work began as a way to confront and rid myself of this fear. The idea of my own mind trapping me in a state of arrested vulnerability infuriated me. I desperately wanted to get better, and once again find comfort in sharing public and private space with other men in the city that I love. As a kind of informal exposure therapy, I forced myself to walk the streets of Kathmandu late at night and photograph the men I ran into.

I walked into this blunt-force desensitization exercise with my flash, the harsh light acting as a stand-in for the desire for retaliatory violence I felt in the immediate aftermath of the assault. The initial intent was to simply overcome my fear by repeatedly exposing myself to that which I was afraid of. However, as I kept shooting, I realized I was seeing in these men a depth and breadth of expression that my own prejudiced notions of masculinity had previously obstructed me from recognizing.

I realized then that I wanted to look directly at the men around me in Kathmandu, to understand them as they are, and also find myself in them. To explore our instincts for aggression and our capacity for tenderness and affection.

Strangers became friends, and I began staging images with them, dramatizing scenes from both my childhood and the immediate aftermath of the assault. Scenes of violence, of strength, and of compassionate support.

When I look at the men in my photographs, I see in them the faces and bodies of the men that hurt me, and in their faces and bodies I begin to also see myself.